


Criminal Negligence

by BlueIris4



Series: White Collar Crime [2]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:56:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueIris4/pseuds/BlueIris4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three people try very hard not to hurt each other. Some days they almost manage it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Criminal Negligence

The Abbot case has been a mess from the start – no clues, no suspects, no witnesses, just body after body piling up in the Shotover Reserve. When the fourth body turns up they start working round the clock, but 36 hours later they’re no closer to finding the killer, and they’ve had nothing but a kip in the break room to keep them going. At six o’clock he sends James home. His sergeant puts up a good fight, but he looks done in, and at least one of them should get a decent eight hours.

Robbie works on as the nick empties out. He isn’t even aware of the hours passing, until a shadow in the doorway tells him he’s no longer alone. He should be angry, he supposes – he’d told James to go home – but Robbie knows better than anyone how impossible it is to reason with the lad when he gets himself into a state. If James is refusing to sleep, he may as well be doing data entry here as wearing the carpet thin at home with his pacing.

And then the shadow in the doorway says, “You need to go home,” and he realises it’s not James at all.

It’s Jean.

It’s been over a fortnight since they’d had their _thing_ (and it sounds a bit juvenile put like that, but Robbie doesn’t have a sodding clue what else to call it), and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking of her as _Jean_ since. Hasn’t been able to stop thinking of her, full-stop, really. Budget meetings have been near unbearable, and he swears they never used to come round quite so often. But nothing’s happened since, and it’s quite definitely not a _thing_ anymore. They’ll forget about it. These things take time.

“Take a break,” she says now. “You need to sleep.”

“Nearly there, Ma’am.”

“Don’t make me pull rank.”

That makes him look up. He meets her eyes dead on and sees affection mingled with surety of purpose. She’s not joking.

He swallows. “All right.”

He looks at his watch and is astounded to see it’s after midnight. They must be the last ones left. She’s right, he probably should knock it off for a bit.

He shuts down his computer and reaches to turn it off at the power-board, but he’s gone cross-eyed from staring at the screen and he’s so tired his coordination is all off. He reaches for the button twice, misses both times, and she huffs in pretend irritation, leans over and does it herself. Her breasts press into his shoulder for the briefest of moments and instantly it’s clear he’s not so tired some parts of him aren’t capable of waking up.

She helps him into his jacket, and for just a second he thinks he feels her fingernails scrape across the back of his neck. It must be a hallucination. He needs to sleep. He feels drunk with exhaustion and she must have some inkling of it, because when he’s successfully dug around in his pocket for his keys (and that takes a fair bit longer than it ought), she takes them straight out of his hand.

“You’re in no fit state to drive,” she tells him. “I’ll take you home.”

He thinks about arguing. He even thinks, for one very ill-advised moment, about pointing out the parallels between two weeks ago and tonight. Then he thinks better of both ideas and nods a weary acquiescence.

He actually goes to sleep in the car and she has to nudge him awake when they stop. Not outside his flat, he realises after a moment, but outside an imposing terrace he’s slept in once before.

“I don’t know where you live,” she admits sheepishly. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

She gives him a piercing look, says, “Do you mind?” and he knows that if he says yes, she’ll take him straight on home. But he doesn’t mind. Although if she’s expecting a repeat performance, she’ll be disappointed. Now that he’s away from the bright lights and screens of the nick, he’s not sure he even has the energy to climb the stairs.

Somehow, miraculously, he does. He makes it up to the front door, and then even manages the two flights inside. Jean hesitates ever so slightly outside the bedroom he knows is hers, before leading him down the hall to a room decked out in dark blues and mahogany. It’s clean and sparse, but not impersonal enough to be a guest room. Sure enough, “This was Andrew’s,” she mutters. “The sheets are clean.”

As if he cares, in the state he’s in. He cares more about the fact that Jean and her husband slept in separate bedrooms. He wonders how long that went on, and if he has the right to ask.

“There’s some of his old pyjamas in the dresser.”

Robbie has no intention of wearing them. As it happens, he doesn’t even change out of his suit trousers. He’s asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

* * *

There’s an irritating buzzing sound above his head. He flails wildly, trying to kill it, but it drones on and on. It takes an age before he realises it’s his phone, another before he has enough coordination to reach for it, and when he flips it open and growls, “Lewis,” he doesn’t even open his eyes.

“I’ve had a thought, sir.”

It’s James. He sounds young and awake and excited – all qualities Robbie suspects have now passed him by forever.

“We never tested the brother-in-law’s alibi, so I ran checks on mechanics all over town, and he doesn’t work anywhere. So then I looked up marriage certificates and found nothing was registered. So _then_ I looked up birth certificates and realised that’s because he _doesn’t exist_. Craye’s sister died years ago and she was never married in the first place. It’s all a lie.”

James is talking a hundred miles a minute and Robbie can’t keep up. But he’s got enough to jerk his eyes open and haul himself upright. It’s a lead. It’s a definite lead. Finally.

“Good work, lad,” he says, even as he thinks through this chain of discovery and concludes his sergeant has likely had even less sleep than Robbie. God help them both. “Let’s bring him in.”

“I’ll come by and pick you up,” James says, and suddenly Robbie is wide awake.

“Ah. Um…” He looks around at the solid dark furniture and the deep blue walls and wonders what he can possibly say. Between James’ spectacular non-reaction two weeks ago and his general irritability since, Robbie knows only too well that this definitely-not-a-thing between his governor and his CS is something of a sore point with the lad.

“No, look, I’ll meet you at the station,” he grunts finally. “Need a bit of time to wake myself up.”

It doesn’t fly, of course. James knows well enough that if Robbie is having a slow morning, he orders James to turn up with coffee and play the chauffeur. He likes someone to grumble at in the mornings.

“Of course, sir,” he says stiffly, and Robbie can tell instantly that he knows. James doesn’t miss a trick. More’s the pity.

“Look, it’s not…” Robbie starts to explain.

“…any of my business,” James interrupts, voice clear and firm and completely failing to conceal any of his obvious displeasure. “I’ll see you at the station in a few hours,” he says and rings off.

Bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Robbie looks at the clock now and sees it’s not yet seven. He could probably snatch another hour’s sleep. He closes his eyes and lies still for a long time, but sleep proves elusive and when he finally gets up, he thinks he’s more tired this morning than when he went to bed.

* * *

The morning after with Jean is slightly less awkward that it was last time. That’s something. Last time they’d stared at each other over lukewarm coffee and stale bread until Robbie had mumbled something about getting a taxi and she’d roused herself to give him a lift home.

He wonders if that’s how it’s going to go today as well, but as soon as he enters the kitchen she says brusquely, “I’ve got to take a conference call with the Chief Constable at nine. You may as well come in to the station with me.”

“We can’t arrive together!”

She arches one eyebrow at him and he wonders if he’s offended her. He supposes he needn’t have sounded quite so appalled by the idea.

“Of course not. I’ll drop you a few streets away.”

Now he wonders if _he_ should be offended. He’s not used to being anyone’s dirty little secret. Even if nothing happened, and there’s no new secret to keep, and it was a one-time thing with no chance of repetition. He shakes himself and decides he’s being ridiculous. This is pure practicality of the kind he’s come to rely on from his CS.

He pours himself a cup of coffee and digs out an old box of cereal from the cupboard. It was Andrew’s, he suspects, from the way Jean crinkles her nose. He remembers where she keeps the cutlery, but she has to get up to find him a bowl and their hands brush as she passes it over. And then they’re seated opposite each other at the breakfast table and both of them are wondering what on earth they have to say to each other.

 _Why’d you bring me here?_ he wants to ask. And, _have you been thinking about me?_ And, _why am I thinking about you?_

Instead, he says, “Hathaway thinks he’s found a lead on the Abbot case.”

“Oh yes?”

It’s easy to talk about work. Too easy, in fact. The case sustains them all the way through breakfast, through the drive, right to the point where she pulls in at the bottom of Longwall Street and stops the car. That’s when conversation grinds to a halt, and Robbie starts to think they shouldn’t have wasted all this time talking about the case when too many things that actually matter have been left unsaid.

“You should probably, uh…” she trails off and gestures at the pavement with a vaguely apologetic look.

He smiles and tries to pretend this whole situation doesn’t bother him at all. He nods, and opens the door, and thinks _right,_ and _okay,_ and _this is **not** a thing_. He’s pulled up short by the sudden press of her hand in his. He squeezes back, thinking how tiny her hand feels in his, and says, “Thank you,” roughly to the dashboard.

“Any time.”

* * *

‘Any time’ becomes every night that week.

James’ lead turns out to be a non-starter, and the case stalls once again. Increasingly it seems like their only hope of solving this one is for the bastard to keep killing. Eventually he’ll have to make a mistake. It’s terrible knowing they have to wait for another body, but they can’t keep working at fever pitch indefinitely. Robbie’s too old for all-nighters, and he’s never felt right demanding from his team what he can’t perform himself. He sends them all home at seven, works on into the night as the nick empties out, and then somehow it’s become habit for Jean to stop by his silent office and bully him out the door.

It doesn’t remain chaste. Robbie continues to sleep in Andrew’s bed, but more nights than not he ends up in Andrew’s room after a detour through Jean’s. They never discuss it. They talk about the case, about expenses, about the new accounting software, about the latest useless secretary recommended by HR, about Peterson’s insistence that Vice needs more money and his interminable cost benefit analyses. They don’t talk about Lyn and Mark, or Chris and Andrew, the divorce, the accident, the children they have and the children they’ve lost.

One night she says to him, “I’m meeting my lawyer tomorrow. Andrew’s claiming maintenance.”

But she doesn’t mention it again, and Robbie doesn’t ask. He thinks this not-talking is probably a failing in them both, but the conversations they aren’t having are mounting up until it’s impossible to know where to start.

They don’t talk about James, either, although Robbie’s sure Jean has noticed how stiff and formal Sergeant Hathaway has become. He’s brusque to the point of rudeness with her these days and it’s raising eyebrows all over the nick. He wonders what she thinks of it, but isn’t quite brave enough to ask.  

Of course, none of this would be happening if James stayed late with him. But the lad hasn’t been himself all week, and he takes off every night on the dot of seven with a cheery wave that reeks of unhappiness. He never stops by to collect Robbie in the mornings; in fact, he never so much as offers. That’s how Robbie knows James is only too aware of what’s going on. He has no idea what he thinks of it. James has retreated into a pose of silent professionalism that grates on Robbie’s every nerve. He’s never rude – if anything, he’s become too polite to Robbie – but he’s distant, and that hurts more.

He doesn’t know what they’re doing exactly. Him and Jean, or him and James. He only knows that the harder they try not to hurt each other, the deeper it seems to cut.

* * *

“All right, James?” he tries on Friday night, when the lad has packed up and is about to make his escape with Julie and Gurdip and the rest.

James pauses in the act of straightening his tie and Robbie notices for the first time how tired he looks. He doesn’t look like he’s slept in a week, for all that he’s been going home at a reasonable hour.

“Fine, sir.”

That’s another thing. James has taken to calling him ‘sir’ at every bleeding opportunity, and it’s driving Robbie round the twist.

“Fancy a pint?” he tries.

James blinks and looks away.   “Can’t, sir. Sorry, sir. I’ve got plans.”

Like hell he does.

Robbie’s tempted to call him on it, but suspects he’s already given his quick-witted sergeant too long to think up a convincing lie. It’ll be ‘Conversational Mandarin’ again, or some such rubbish.

“Right, then,” he says, and stares at James helplessly.

He doesn’t know what to say. Clearly they need to talk about this business between him and Jean, but they can’t do that _here_ , and if James won’t see him outside the nick, Robbie doesn’t know how they can even begin to resolve this thing between them.

“Have a good weekend,” he says finally.

James looks at him briefly, his back stiffens, and he mutters, “You too, sir,” sounding as if he’d rather be wishing Robbie a miserable eternity on a long-forgotten planet. He’s out the door before Robbie can say anything else.

Robbie stares after him, and thinks that he and Jean have lost a lot more than they’ve found.

* * *

On Saturday morning he comes down to find Jean’s breakfast table covered in papers. Letters from lawyers, bank statements, property valuations, even a copy of her will. He definitely, absolutely does not look at any of them as he puts the kettle on and rummages for the instant. The fridge is bare (of course – no surprises there – Jean is worse than he is about living on microwave meals), but there’s some bread in the freezer and some not-too-desperately-old jam in the cupboard. He finds a tray somewhere in the deepest recesses of the kitchen dresser and carries the coffees and some slightly damp toast up to Jean’s room.

She’s awake when he enters, reading e-mails on her phone and looking drawn. James isn’t the only one who’s looking tired at the moment. All three of them seem to grow more exhausted with every passing day, for all that the investigation’s slowed to a halt. She smiles at him, puts the phone aside, and reaches out gratefully for the coffee. Then she scoots across the bed making room for him to join her. He sinks gratefully beneath the covers and resolutely refuses to imagine her husband here before him, or the hundreds of similar mornings she spent with a man he’s never even met. Good thing, too. Robbie’s sure he wouldn’t like him.

They sit in comfortable silence, sipping at their coffee, and Robbie wonders if this is the time to start one of the conversations they should be having and aren’t.

“I see you’re making progress with the settlement.”

That seems as good a place to start as any. It was certainly the elephant in the kitchen, so to speak.

She looks at him over the rim of the cup, then lowers it carefully onto the tray.

“Yes,” she says warily. “Yes, you could say that. It’s all a bit of a nightmare, really, but the lawyer thinks he doesn’t have a case.”

That’s good. The last thing any of them wants is to see Jean out of pocket because her husband is a cheating layabout.

“Although I could lose the house,” she says, and taps an urgent little rhythm with her fingers against the tray. “I will if I can’t buy Andrew out. He may not let me. Even if he does, it’ll be a hell of a mortgage.”

“Would you mind selling?” he asks, curious in spite of himself. He can’t imagine rolling around in a great big place like this all by himself, but then he doesn’t understand Jean most of the time, and he finds it hard to tell if she finds all this space liberating or overwhelming. She’d probably feel claustrophobic in a one-bedroom like his.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “They want Chris to write an affidavit on my behalf.” She pauses, fiddles with the covers. “He’s very upset,” she says uncertainly. “I don’t like to ask.”

“He’s not angry with you?”

She frowns and begins shredding the toast into little pieces. She hasn’t eaten any of it. Robbie wonders if he should worry about this; she’s barely eaten a thing all week, as far as he can see.

“He’s very angry,” she says finally. An answer and not an answer. “Maybe if I’d been around more when he was growing up…”

She trails off and Robbie reaches across to cover her hand with his. He wishes he could calm her mind as easily as he can still her fingers.

“No maybes,” he says quietly. “Don’t do that to yourself. You drive yourself mad with it.”

He knows that only too well. She leans her head against his shoulder and he throws an arm around her, drawing her closer and marvelling at how perfectly she tucks into his body.

“I think I am going mad.” Her breath tickles along the back of his neck and makes him shiver. “I don’t feel like myself. Except when I’m here.”

 _With you_ , she doesn’t say.

It’s impossible to resist kissing her. Impossible to resist anything about her warm body and eager touch.

Maybe they are building something here after all.

* * *

He doesn’t stay all weekend. It’s one thing to arrive late at night and leave early in the morning; it’s quite another to spend the day together. Even if it turns out they do have a bit of a _thing_ going on after all, they’re not a couple. Robbie doesn’t know what they are.

He takes himself home, puts on a load of laundry and clears out his mouldy fridge. The milk has thickened into solid grey chunks. Then he sits at his kitchen table and wonders what he should do with himself. He’s got a stack of case notes to go through, but he can’t seem to focus his mind. After an hour of staring at the file and not managing to get past the end of the second page, he gives up and dials James.

The lad doesn’t pick up, but Robbie leaves him a short message that seems to say less than the sentences it comprises – something about going for a drink and talking through the case – and then tries him twice more over the course of the afternoon. James never answers. Early on Sunday morning, just when Robbie’s starting to worry that this isn’t just the cold shoulder, and that something might actually have happened to the lad, his phone buzzes. He flips it open and sees a message.

_Busy w/end. Sorry, sir. See you Monday._

For the first time in years, Robbie looks around his flat and feels claustrophobic. Strange how a space can feel too crowded and too empty all at once.

* * *

And then a fifth body turns up. James arrives at the scene looking like he’s spent the entire weekend pacing up and down in his flat and chain-smoking. He probably has. He’s so strung out on nicotine and sleep deprivation Robbie almost sends him home.

Except when he tries to find the words to frame the order, he can’t find any way of putting it that James won’t hear as a betrayal, and so somehow he doesn't say anything at all. There’s enough walls between them as it is.

“I think there’s genetic material here I could save,” Laura murmurs to Robbie, but she’s looking at James and her eyes are wide. “I’ve tagged the body for special attention.”

He looks at her gratefully. “You’re a wonder, Laura.”

“Is James all right?” she asks quietly, when SOCO have taken charge of the body and James is off giving orders to the assembled DCs.

“I don’t know,” Robbie says, but thinks, _no_. He’s got a fair idea why, too. He just wishes he had any buggering clue what to do about it.

“Shouldn’t you know?” she says pointedly.

He winces, but accepts the reproof. “He’s been a bit, uh, reticent, lately. Silent, like.”

“Has he? I hear he’s been downright unpleasant to work with. Rumour is he’s even started mouthing off to Jean.” Her eyes narrow. Robbie has forgotten just how penetrating that laser blue gaze can be. “Hopper said he called her interfering and she didn’t even call him on it. Doesn’t sound much like James to me. Jean, either.”

There’s something speculative in her eyes that Robbie doesn’t like at all. He shifts uncomfortably.

“Tough time for both of them,” he mumbles.

Laura frowns at him, then says brusquely, “Yes, I heard about that. Mind you, I don’t suppose she’s got anyone to blame but herself.”

"Here now, that's not fair," he protests.  And he wouldn’t have expected it, not from Laura. She can be a bit sharp at times, but there’s a difference between sharp and downright unfeeling.

She must see something of what he’s thinking in his face because her eyes soften ever so fractionally and she says, “I didn’t mean it’s not a bloody awful thing to go through. I only meant – look, Robbie, she’s a grown woman. She’s not your responsibility. Not like James is.”

 _Not your responsibility_. The same thing James had said to him. But if she isn’t Robbie’s, then whose is she?

“He needs someone to look out for him,” Laura finishes with a meaningful look.

Doesn’t Robbie know it. It’s bloody hard to take care of someone, though, if they won’t let you.

* * *

James isn’t himself all day. He’s jumpy and irritable and so quick to bite people’s heads off he actually makes the new DC cry. Robbie opens his mouth to call him on it, and finds himself staring into James’ deep-sunken eyes and thinking that the last thing he can bear to do is add to the lad’s troubles. He lets it pass.

The day is interminably long, and made longer by the irritating pattern James’ fingers tap on the desktop. He’s a fidgeter, just like Jean. Robbie keeps himself from saying anything only by the most heroic of efforts, but his silence only seems to pull the tension between them tighter and tighter as the hours pass.

By the time seven o’clock rolls around, Robbie is positively grateful for an excuse to get out of the nick. He shuts down his computer and stretches, trying to signal without words that it’s time to clock off. James quite ostentatiously doesn’t take the hint.

“Fancy a bite?” he says, abruptly deciding that this has gone on long enough. This is the evening he’s got to corner James. He’ll get him home, feed him up and force him to spit out what’s worrying him. And then he’ll put him to sleep on the couch, right where Robbie can see him. That’s the only way to make sure the lad actually gets some shut-eye.

He just has to find a way of making James see that whatever is or isn’t going on between him and Jean, nothing between him and James has changed. Nothing’s going to change. He wishes there was a way of making that plain without words, because lord knows Robbie can’t find any.

But James shakes his head jerkily. “No thanks, sir,” he mutters, and gestures at the mess of papers piled high around him. “Lots to get through here.”

No doubt. He’s done more sighing and fidgeting today than actual work. But still, “nothing that can’t wait til tomorrow,” Robbie tells him. “C’mon, you look like you could do with a good meal.”

He does, too. James looks like he’s lost weight in the past week, and he had precious little of it to lose to start with.

“Thanks, sir, but I’ve got a rehearsal later on. Think I’ll just stay here til I have to head on over.”

He doesn’t have his guitar with him. Robbie almost points it out.

But every line of James’ body is straining away from him. It couldn’t be more obvious that the lad wants distance. And he can’t _order_ James to come home with him, can he. He doesn’t like to think what Jean would make of that, in either her personal or professional capacities.

“All right,” he gives in. “All right.”

A wave of helplessness washes over him. He stares at James, shoulders sagging in defeat, and James stares right back. He doesn’t give so much as an inch and Robbie has no idea how to take one.

* * *

He’s in Jean’s room when the call comes. It’s a blocked number and if it wasn’t after midnight, and it wasn’t for years of being a copper, he’d probably ignore it.

“Lewis,” he grunts. “This had better be murder.”

Jean shifts beside him and makes a little noise of protest. She’s just got to sleep, and lord knows she needs her rest. He pats one hand against her shoulder in mute apology and tries to focus on the voice down the line. It’s distant and crackly and between the static and his own fatigue, he only makes out one word in ten. But it’s enough. He gets ‘Hathaway’, ‘concussion’ and ‘emergency’ and he’s wide awake.

“Where is he?”

Jean must hear something in his voice because she sits up and turns on the light, her face falling into lines of gentle concern. Robbie barely notices. He’s already leaping out of bed, still listening intently as he fumbles for his clothes with hands that are suddenly too cold and weak to catch hold of anything.

“Right,” he says finally. “Right, thanks.”

He hangs up and stares at the phone in disbelief. _The bloody fool._

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“It’s James.” That voice doesn’t sound anything like his. His voice doesn’t tremble. “He got a lead on the Abbot case. Went after the bastard without back-up. He’s in the John Radcliffe.”

His hands are shaking so much he can’t button up his shirt. Jean slides out of bed and does it for him with those calm and capable hands. Then she presses those dependable fingers against his heart and he stands still for a moment, leaning into her, trying to drink in her warmth.  

“All right,” she murmurs, “it’s all right. I’ll drive you.”

He wonders if this is what their relationship is, really. Two people helping each other to get where they’re going. One person always along for the ride.

“Please,” he says, and means _thank you_.

She steps back and gets dressed with quiet efficiency. And then they’re walking out the door – Robbie a scruffy mess of nerves and guilt, and Jean as elegant as ever. If she’s shaken, even Robbie can’t see it. He doesn’t know how she manages to look so pulled together when he feels like he’s being pulled in a thousand different directions. Or at least two.

* * *

He’s grateful Jean is with him when they get to the JR. He’s too distraught to frame the right questions or browbeat the nurses into answering them. Unsurprisingly, however, Jean knows just what to say. She plants Robbie in the visitors’ lounge and she’s back five minutes’ later with a full report.

“It’s a mild concussion. He brought the suspect to the station and even got him checked into a holding cell before he collapsed in front of the welcome desk. Constable Howe called an ambulance, but he was up before they arrived. They’re keeping him in to run some tests just in case, but he only sustained a minor head wound, and they’ve stitched him right up.”

Stitched him up. So there’d been a cut. There would have been blood.

Robbie feels sick to his stomach.

Jean is watching him closely. He can feel how desperately she wants to reach out and grip his hand, but she won’t, of course. Not here, not in public. Still, something about her worried look steadies him. It reminds him that James is not his only responsibility here.

“Where is he?”

“Cubicle two,” she says, and then before he can leap up, “No visitors yet. He’s gone for his MRI.”

 _Christ_. Robbie knows that’s just routine these days with head injuries, but still, it’s hard not to worry over what they might find.

“Robbie,” she says, and again, “Robbie.” He blinks and focuses in on the frown of her lips. Her expression is uncommonly serious, even for Jean. “Robbie, they say he's barely eaten or slept in days.”

She looks at him searchingly, and her eyes are saying _did you know?_ and _why didn’t you do anything?_ and _he’s your responsibility._

Robbie thinks of that drawn face and those deep-sunken eyes, ringed in blue-black. “I know,” he says grimly.

He should have been there, he thinks. And not just tonight.

* * *

When they finally allow him into James’ cubicle, he thinks for a moment that they’ve made a mistake. That skinny figure with the lined face and the black eye can’t be his sergeant. The James he knows is a young, bounding mass of police officer who seems to take up about twice as much space as he should by sheer force of personality. But the man in this bed looks old and tired and very, very small. He almost backs out, would have if Jean hadn’t ever so subtly pressed her fingertips to his upper arm and pushed him forward.

“Constable Howe is here,” she whispers. “I’ll take a statement now. You stay here.”

In some vague, abstracted part of his mind, he wonders what PC Howe is going to make of Robbie and Jean here together. It’s no secret that CS Innocent takes the welfare of her officers seriously, but there’s a fair leap between that and coming out in the middle of the night to keep vigil at a sergeant’s bedside. She wouldn’t normally be notified about something like this until tomorrow. Howe’s going to wonder how she even knew James was admitted.

But that’s a problem to worry over later. Much later. Perhaps never. Because the problem now is James looking too small and too tired in that bed, and cracking his eyes open to stare at Robbie in something like shock.

“What’re you doing here?”

Even his voice sounds tired and hungry. Robbie has to swallow around a sudden lump in his throat.

“Heard my sergeant was taking a kip in here, didn’t I.” He doesn’t wait for an invitation to sink down on the end of the bed. Honestly he’s not sure his legs will hold him up much longer. “Can’t have that. Hospital beds are for the sick, you know, lad.”

He tries to smile, but he thinks it mustn’t come out right because James looks away and frowns furiously down into the sheets. Between the concussion, the neat line of stitches along his eyebrow and that fearsome black eye, he doesn’t know how the lad manages it. It must hurt like hell.

“I told PC Howe I was fine,” James says petulantly. “Everyone’s making a fuss about nothing.”

Okay, Robbie thinks. Not the time for jokes.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one,” he says lightly.

“They shouldn’t have called you.”

James’ features have twisted into a ferocious scowl and Robbie hates to think what it’s doing to his stitches.

“I don’t mind,” he says, even though that should be obvious. He’s learned by now never to take the obvious for granted with James. “I wouldn’t want you here alone,” he says, and thinks _you shouldn’t ever be alone_ and _you should know you don’t have to be_.

But James is frowning and his face is settling into that stubborn expression Robbie knows all too well. It’s as if he thinks Robbie’s talking about the case and going off on his own after a suspect, rather than all the days and days of James shutting him out beforehand. Well, Robbie has no intention of reading him the riot act tonight. Actually, he’s already wondering if he can shunt that entire conversation off onto Jean. A bit unprofessional of him, perhaps, but the thought of taking James to task for what has been as much Robbie’s failing as his sergeant’s – well, it doesn’t bear thinking about, that’s all.

So now he contents himself with, “Only you just remember you’ve got a partner for a reason.”

James blinks and stares down into his lap. “Do I?” he says quietly, and Robbie knows suddenly that they’re not talking about the case or the nick or suspects at all.

 _Oh._ So it’s like that then.

He thinks he should be a bit shocked, or taken aback, or at least bemused to finally understand all the reasons why seeing him with Jean has sent James so thoroughly off the deep end.  But if anything, it feels like he's just recognising something he's always known.  It's almost disconcerting how entirely _not_ surprised he is by this development.

There’s still a lot Robbie doesn’t understand about James and Jean and his own feelings, but if there’s one thing he knows for sure, it’s that he can’t bear to watch another second of that miserable, mulish expression settling ever deeper across James’ face. So he doesn’t think about it, just reaches out impulsively and catches one of the lad’s hands in his. He squeezes those too-thin fingers, rubs his thumb lightly across the back of his hand, and wishes he could say everything James needs to hear through touch alone. But James is like Jean, really. It’s easy to still the twitching eye or the fidgeting fingers, and damn near impossible to get anywhere near the turmoil underneath.

“Aye, you do,” he says simply.

James goes quite still for a moment, then his grip tightens, he’s holding on for dear life, and Robbie reflects that maybe sometimes it is possible to speak through touch after all. He thinks they’ve just come to an understanding, without the need for any words.

* * *

James is asleep, and Robbie’s still perched on the end of the bed (absolute murder on his back, and it’s astonishing how little he cares), when Jean returns. She takes one look at the two of them holding hands tight as if they’re about to jump off a bleeding cliff, and she arches one of those too-expressive eyebrows.

“He’s just drifted off,” Robbie explains in a whisper.

“So I see,” she says, and looks at him pointedly as if to say that she sees a great deal more than that, and she’s not entirely sure what she thinks about it.

He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what he thinks about it either.

“Well, I can see I’m not needed here,” she says finally. Actually he'd quite like her to stay, but he looks down at James’ long, thin, miserable form – at this tall and small responsibility he wouldn’t give up even if he could – and finds he can’t say anything. Whatever he does or doesn’t need, James won’t take well to waking up and finding his CS looming over him. She’s not Jean to him, not yet.

“Take a taxi home,” she says now. “You can charge it to the case expenses. And tell Hathaway he’s to take three days leave. More if he wants them.”

It’s an unusually generous offer, all things considered.

He cocks his head, and tries to convey without words how confused he is, and how desperately he doesn’t want to hurt her. He doesn’t want to hurt either of them. Never has. He reaches out with his other hand and after a brief hesitation, she steps forward and takes it. She presses his fingers for the briefest of instants before she lets his hand fall, and a little ball of tension Robbie hadn’t known he’d been holding comes loose in his chest.

“You’ll be the death of me,” she murmurs. “Both of you.”

But there’s something warm, no, downright _fond_ , in her voice. Robbie isn’t surprised when she darts forward and presses the lightest of awkward kisses to the top of his head. Then she’s gone, and Robbie is left perched on the end of the bed, holding James Hathaway’s hand and wondering just when things got so complicated. And just when complicated became something he wanted.

Everything looks a bit murky on this side of the morning, but the sun’ll be up soon, and everything’s bound to be clearer then. He doesn’t know where they’re going, but he feels more hopeful than he has in days. That’s something.


End file.
